Frequently Asked Questions

The LGBTQ Student Resource Center of Auraria is a tri-institutional office dedicated to providing resources and support to the LGBTQ+ community of the Auraria campus. We are the oldest campus LGBTQ+ center in the state of Colorado.

The LGBTQ Student Resource Center of Auraria is an office dedicated to serving our community here on campus by providing a variety of services such as advocacy and education. We offer paid positions to student staff who create events and take volunteers to aid us in our mission. We are not a student group or organizations such as a Gender & Sexuality Alliance (GSA); however, we certainly can help you get involved in one!

We are a general resource center for LGBTQ students on the Auraria campus and provide what we call the C.A.R.E model, which stands for Community Building, Advocacy & Access, Resources, and Education/Engagement/Equity. One of the biggest pieces of our work is advocacy. We primarily serve populations of LGBTQ students, but we are also here for students of color, immigrants, disabled students, religious minorities, and other marginalized identities that exist on campus. Some of our staff hold educational training for different offices and organizations on campus to help others better understand the different identities within the LGBTQ community. We also use our events as an opportunity to educate by giving lesser-discussed identities

Our office also holds several events every semester, some of our most well-known events being Lavender Graduation (LGBT graduation ceremony), Love Is A Drag (drag show), and National Coming Out Day. We also use our events as an opportunity to educate by giving lesser-discussed identities the visibility and acknowledgment they need, such as Bi/Pan/Fluid Day or Lesbian Day of Visibility. Many of these events are held annually and are held on a come-and-go basis, meaning you may leave and return as you please.

We have a social space in the back of our office where students are free to visit to hang out, do homework, check out our library, etc.

Our office hosts virtual engagement events weekly. Register for our weekly engagement events here!

We encourage all students who wish to stay engaged to sign up for our ListServ (email our Director to sign up at [email protected]), register for our virtual engagement listed in our Qualtrics survey, and to follow us on social media to stay up to date! You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Yes! We welcome everyone into our office, and although the majority of our work is geared towards LGBTQ individuals, we also have many valuable resources for our straight allies who want to learn more about being allyship.

No! All three schools have an option to change the name you applied to the school with to a preferred name without changing it legally! This change may take up to 2 weeks to be finalized, should you have any issues during this process please let us know.

• MSU Denver Name Change Information
• CU Denver Name Change Information
• CCD Name Change Form

We are so sorry to hear that you’re struggling with this issue. It’s something far too many LGBTQ people face, and we want you to know that we understand and we are here to help.

If you are in immediate danger, call emergency services (if you are on the Auraria campus, call 303-556-5000). We do not have the capability to respond to emergencies and we want to make sure that you’re safe!

We are more than happy to assist you through this difficult time in any way we can! We can provide resources for things like housing and food banks in the Denver area. We also offer advocacy services that include anonymously reaching out to professors or university staff involved, offer training to departments that need more education, and much more.

The Auraria campus also has many other resources for these situations, here are just a few of them:

The Phoenix Center of Auraria

The Phoenix Center at Auraria’s mission is to implement campus response services, provide education, and facilitate dialogue related to interpersonal violence in the Auraria community.

MSU Denver Counseling Center

CU Denver Counseling Center

CCD Counseling Center

If you notice another student exhibiting unusual or concerning behaviors, you can submit a CARE report so that appropriate University officials can provide support to that student. If you’d like to learn more about what a CARE team does, follow the link to your school’s team below:

MSU Denver CARE Team

CU Denver CARE Team

CCD CARE Team

Yes! There are around 30 gender-neutral restrooms on the Auraria campus. AHEC has a handy gender-inclusive bathroom map created to help guide you to one. There is also a gender-inclusive locker room for MSU located in the PE Event Center and in CU Denver’s Rec Center.

Yes! Our Educational Team is ready to present on any of the prepared material below:

• Gender & Sexuality 101
• Rethinking Gender, Bystander Intervention
• Heterosexism & You
• Legislation & Law

If we are given enough time in advance, we can also present on a topic related to your course.

After hosting Safe Zone Ally Trainings for nearly a decade, our Educational Team reflected on the impact they have had on campus climate. Following a collaborative study done by CU Denver and our office, we found that out of all of the services provided by our office to students, Safe Zone Ally Trainings ranked last on how impactful they were to LGBTQ+ community members. This meant what we were doing was not working.

Our Educational Team spent the Summer of 2019 creating what we call the Auraria Campus Pride Initiative, or ACPI. It is a consultation, auditing, and training program designed to change the culture of the offices and departments on the Auraria Campus, as opposed to just the people. We work hands on with a specific office for a semester, starting from the ground up. We work to change the ways in which they engage with students, and provide them with the tools to affirm the students in the way they can. ACPI has already worked with MSU Denver’s Dean of Students & Art Department.

We don’t order buttons, we don’t have automated machines, and we make thousands of buttons each semester, so we can’t put every design ever on a button, but we try to be as inclusive as we can! If you have an idea or a request for a button design, email us at [email protected] so we know what you’d like to see!

Our office no longer makes buttons of the lesbian flag because the creator of that flag has made insensitive and racist remarks in the past and we do not want to associate with them.

Instead of a lesbian flag, we have lots of lesbian-specific button designs, so take a look in the button bin or ask a staff member for more info if you’d like to see them!

Once we begin hiring, you will be notified via email, but if you have any questions, you can email our director at any time at [email protected]. We also post on social media when we are hiring.

There are several ways that you can get involved at the center, especially volunteering. The tasks you take on as a volunteer may vary with our changing projects, events, and needs in the office. However, it may consist of tasks such as library organization, helping set up for events, flying, etc. You will need to fill out our volunteer form for this.